This Voice in My Heart by Gilbert Tuhabonye

Author:Gilbert Tuhabonye
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

When you are facing certain death, you find comfort any place you are able. I’d avoided being hacked to pieces. The blow intended for my head had struck me in the chest. Though it stunned me and the taste of blood polluted my mouth, I was still conscious. The gas station that we’d all been herded into was filled with Tutsis, but at least our enemy was outside. There were so many of us, all we could do was stand shoulder to shoulder.

I leaned against a wall for a few moments trying to catch my breath and clear my mind. I pictured my home on Mount Fuku, saw myself running downhill toward the well, the tug of gravity momentarily forgotten, my feet expressing my joy. Around me at that moment in Kibimba, I saw no joy. I saw my fellow students and other Tutsis numbly staring at me, their expressions devoid of understanding but their eyes alert with a combination of fear, recognition, and desire. In a way, I was envious of some of them. Some had been rendered senseless, clubbed on the back of the neck with tree limbs as thick as a man’s thigh; some had been temporarily paralyzed, dragged into the building. I cannot be certain, but I believed that many of them felt no pain. They did not cry out then, nor did they respond at all when the situation grew far worse.

At one point, a couple of Hutu men came into the building and poked their heads around; they seemed to be counting. I suspected that they were trying to determine if everyone inside was a Tutsi. They ducked out a minute or two later.

I was not envious of those who had been attacked with machetes. The concrete floor was slick with their blood. They clutched their arms, their heads, wherever they’d been cut. But for the most part they stood dripping blood, immobile, their expression vacant. Their moans and mutterings tore at my heart. Each time I looked in another direction and saw another gaping wound, my stomach dropped—as though I’d crested a hill at high speed in an automobile. I sucked in my breath past teeth I’d clenched for hours. I stretched my aching jaw and felt my pulse pounding in my temples. Trying to massage the pain away, I shut my eyes and let my fingers work on various pressure points in my head and neck. For some reason, when I closed my eyes, the volume rose. Not only could I now hear the shouts and cries of my fellow captives, I could hear the Hutus clapping their hands, banging drums, chanting and singing, “We did it!” over and over again. Rain pelted the corrugated-steel roof, adding tympani to the chorus. The increase in volume surprised me—it was as if I’d been swimming and had water in my ears and now it had drained.

The pungent odor of seared flesh and hair attacked my senses. Opening my eyes confirmed what I suspected. The crowd inside was like an amoeba, and each person’s movement sent a ripple effect among us.

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